Democrats to Target FOX News - AGAIN!!!!

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has come up with a novel way to energize the base and capitalize on the left’s antipathy to Fox News—a “Fact Check Fox” State of the Union rapid response team staffed by grassroots activists.

“This group of Democratic Party activists will stand at the ready to counter the lies and distortions that erupt from the rightwing media and Republican spin doctors like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck following President Obama's State of the Union address on Wednesday night,” reads the email, which will be sent out Wednesday to its 4 million-plus list. “You will receive rapid response fact check text alerts and a direct line to our Rapid Response team to tell us when you see Republican pundits and Members of Congress twisting the truth.”

The DCCC email, which says it aims to recruit 5,000 new members to its fact check team by midnight, comes with head shots of four top Fox villains—Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. - Politico Story

FOX News Most Trusted News in America

Fox is the most trusted television news network in the country, according to a new poll out Tuesday.

A Public Policy Polling nationwide survey of 1,151 registered voters Jan. 18-19 found that 49 percent of Americans trusted Fox News, 10 percentage points more than any other network.

Thirty-seven percent said they didn’t trust Fox, also the lowest level of distrust that any of the networks recorded.

There was a strong partisan split among those who said they trusted Fox — with 74 percent of Republicans saying they trusted the network, while only 30 percent of Democrats said they did.

CNN was the second-most-trusted network, getting the trust of 39 percent of those polled. Forty-one percent said they didn’t trust CNN.

Each of the three major networks was trusted by less than 40 percent of those surveyed, with NBC ranking highest at 35 percent. Forty-four percent said they did not trust NBC, which was combined with its sister cable station MSNBC.

Thirty-two percent of respondents said they trusted CBS, while 31 percent trusted ABC. Both CBS and ABC were not trusted by 46 percent of those polled. - Politico Story

It's All The Democrats Fault - Just Ask Them!!!

President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will be all smiles as the president arrives at the Capitol for his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, but the happy faces can’t hide relationships that are fraying and fraught.

The anger is most palpable in the House, where Pelosi and her allies believe Obama’s reluctance to stake his political capital on health care reform in mid-2009 contributed to the near collapse of negotiations now.

But sources say there are also signs of strain between Reid and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, and relations between Democrats in the House and Democrats in the Senate are hovering between thinly veiled disdain and outright hostility.

In a display of contempt unfathomable in the feel-good days after Obama’s Inauguration, freshman Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) stood up at a meeting with Pelosi last week to declare: “Reid is done; he’s going to lose” in November, according to three people who were in the room.

Titus denied Tuesday evening that she had singled out Reid, but she acknowledged that she said Democrats would be “f—-ed” if they failed to heed the lessons of Massachusetts, where Republican Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat last week.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), a Pelosi ally, took his shots at the Senate on Fox radio Tuesday, describing the Senate as the “House of Lords” and accusing senators of failing to “understand that those of us that go out there every two years stay in touch with the American people.”

On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters the legislative process in the Senate is “broken” — prompting Reid to later quip: “I could give you a few comments on how I feel about the House.”

Pelosi and her allies blame the collapsing health reform negotiations, in part, on Obama’s reluctance to sacrifice political capital to seal a final deal in mid-2009. House Democrats also resent that Emanuel and other White House officials forced them to take tough votes on cap and trade and health reform while allowing Reid and Senate Democrats months of fruitless frittering on the details. - Politico Story

Reid Looks Done as Senator in Nevada

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid continues to trail in matchups with prospective GOP challengers, according to a poll released Monday by the liberal blog Daily Kos and Research 2000.

Businessman Danny Tarkanian leads Reid 52 percent to 41 percent, with 7 percent undecided. Former state GOP Chairwoman Sue Lowden is also ahead of Reid by a similar margin, 51 percent to 42 percent, with 7 percent undecided.

Reid’s unfavorables remain high at 55 percent, with only 34 percent holding a favorable view of the four-term senator, with 11 percent undecided.

The poll reports that discontent with both parties remains high—with 57 percent having an unfavorable view of the GOP and 52 percent viewing Democrats unfavorably. President Barack Obama, who won Nevada with 55 percent in 2008, has also seen his approval drop—50 percent now view him unfavorably, 45 percent favorably and 5 percent are undecided.

The poll tested Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman in the Senate race, prior to his announcement Monday that he would not run for governor in 2010. With Goodman running for the Senate as a Democrat, he’s narrowly ahead of Tarkanian by 3 points—44 to 41 percent with 15 percent undecided. He leads Lowden by 4 points—44 percent to 40 percent, with 16 percent undecided.

Goodman’s favorability rating is the highest among the candidates tested, with 47 percent holding a positive opinion of the mayor, 19 percent viewing him unfavorably and 34 percent undecided.

The poll also tested two other Democrats for Senate: Rep. Shelley Berkley and Secretary of State Ross Miller. Both trailed Lowden and Tarkanian. - Politico Story

Obama Trying to Rewind History of Health Talks

After weeks of denials from the White House that the health care reform effort failed to exhibit the transparency President Barack Obama promised on the campaign trail, Obama is conceding that locking the public out of key discussions was a “mistake.”

“We had to make so many decisions quickly in a very difficult set of circumstances that after awhile, we started worrying more about getting the policy right than getting the process right,” Obama told ABC’s Diane Sawyer Monday. “But I had campaigned on process—part of what I had campaigned on was changing how Washington works, opening up, transparency. ...The health care debate as it unfolded legitimately raised concerns not just among my opponents, but also amongst supporters that we just don't know what's going on. And it's an ugly process and it looks like there are a bunch of back room deals.”

Obama said he planned to address the point in his State of the Union address on Wednesday.

“The process didn't run the way I ideally would like it to and that we have to move forward in a way that recaptures that sense of opening things up more,” Obama said.

The president called the lack of transparency “my responsibility,” but moments later in the interview he suggested that decisions to handle key discussions in private were made by Congress. - Politico Story

Obama Looks to Middle Class to Save Democrats

(AP) Declaring America's middle class is "under assault," President Barack Obama unveiled plans Monday to help hurting families pay their bills, save for retirement and care for their kids and aging parents. His comments previewed Wednesday's State of the Union address to Congress.

The White House has promised a sharper focus on jobs and the economy as the dust settles from the punishing loss of the late Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts. Republicans won the seat for the first time in decades and took away Democrats' 60-vote majority in the Senate, which Obama's party had needed to bypass Republicans' tactics to stall legislation.

Democrats are trying to regroup to head off more populist anger and stem more losses of congressional seats in November elections. Obama's poll numbers are also off - primarily because of the slow economic recovery and double-digit unemployment. A majority of Americans also have turned against health care reform, the president's signature legislative effort now in jeopardy. - CBS News Story

The sad part is that the Middle Class has been under assault. We continue to be under assault. The real sad part is that Obama and the Democrats could have cared less until they have realized that is the Middle Class that can save the failing Presidency of Obama and the poor leadership of Pelosi and Reid.

Italy Blasts Obama's Haiti Response as a TV Event

Italy's top disaster official blasted the U.S.-led relief effort in Haiti as a "pathetic" failure that is turning a national tragedy into a "vanity show for the television cameras."

Guido Bertolaso, the head of Italy's Civil Protection Agency, told Italian television on Sunday that the U.S. military "tends to confuse military intervention with emergency intervention," and that despite the presence of 13,000 U.S. troops there, "no one is giving orders."

He said there is a danger that aid will be lost by the "inefficient" operation.

Bertolaso threw darts at targets ranging from former President Bill Clinton to the United Nations, which he faulted for throwing aid packages at the island and hoping for the best.

"They thought they could bring something to eat and drink and the problem would be resolved," he told a television interviewer.

Bertolaso called for the appointment of a civilian international humanitarian coordinator.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini quickly distanced the government in Rome from Bertolaso's comments and said the Cabinet-level official was not speaking in an official capacity when he lit into the U.S. - FOX News Story

Retiring Democrat Blasts Party and Obama

Rep. Marion Berry's parting shot, published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette [no link, subscription only] offers a warning to moderate Democrats and border state moderates — warning of a midterm bloodbath comparable to the 54-seat D-to-R swing in 1994.

But the jaw-dropper is Berry's claim that President Obama personally dismissed any comparison between Democrats now and under Bill Clinton 16 years ago — by saying his personal popularity would bail everybody out.

The retiring Berry, who doesn't say when the remarks were made, now scoffs at Obama's 50-or-below approval rating:

Writes ADG reporter Jane Fullerton:

Berry recounted meetings with White House officials, reminiscent of some during the Clinton days, where he and others urged them not to force Blue Dogs “off into that swamp” of supporting bills that would be unpopular with voters back home.

“I’ve been doing that with this White House, and they just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all,” Berry said. “They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’ We’re going to see how much difference that makes now.” [snip]

“I began to preach last January that we had already seen this movie and we didn’t want to see it again because we know how it comes out,” said Arkansas’ 1st District congressman, who worked in the Clinton administration before being elected to the House in 1996... "I just began to have flashbacks to 1993 and ’94. No one that was here in ’94, or at the day after the election felt like. It certainly wasn’t a good feeling.” - Politico Story

Democrats Bush Bashing Blame Game Not Working

After three consecutive losses in statewide races, some top Democrats are questioning a tactic aimed at boosting the party’s candidates in each of those contests: Bush-bashing.

Running as much against the Bush White House as he was running against Sen. John McCain, Barack Obama easily carried Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts in 2008.

Yet when Democratic nominees for governor in Virginia and New Jersey and for Senate in Massachusetts sought to tie their GOP opponents to the still-unpopular former president, the strategy didn’t resonate. Voters were more focused on the current administration or local political issues — and the onetime Democratic magic formula seemed yesterday’s news.

“Voters are pretty tired of the blame game,” said longtime Democratic strategist Steve Hildebrand, a top aide on Obama’s presidential campaign. “What a stupid strategy that was.”

Howard Wolfson, a senior official on Hillary Clinton’s campaign and veteran Democratic communications guru, noted that his party was able to run against Republican Herbert Hoover’s Depression-era presidency for 30 years.

“That doesn’t seem to be the case here,” he said. - Politico Story

White House - "More People voted to express their support for Barack Obama than oppose him"

The White House is evaluating whether to take a breather on health care or try to push for passing legislation, but is not convinced Massachusetts voters were trying to block health insurance reform by voting last week to send Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Sunday.

Gibbs said discussions are happening now on timing and whether it is now or in a few months after Congress works on job creation.

"We're working with leaders on Capitol Hill to try to figure out the best path forward," Gibbs told "Fox News Sunday." We don't know what that is quite yet ... The problems that existed in American health care that existed a year ago or a week ago continue today."

The Senate election Tuesday in Massachusetts gave Republicans the victory they needed to block the Democratic health care bill from passing the Senate as Brown becomes the critical 41st vote in procedural moves to end debate. Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi conceded she did not have enough votes in the House to pass a Senate version that already has made it through that chamber. Doing so would avoid bringing Brown into the equation.

Gibbs said that Brown may have campaigned on stopping the health care bill but that's not why voters elected him over Democrat Martha Coakley.

"More people voted to express their support for Barack Obama than to oppose him," Gibbs said.

"Seventy percent of the voters in Massachusetts wanted to work with Democrats on health care reform, only 28 percent want to stop health care reform from happening. ... If Republicans want to assume that the outcome of what happened in Massachusetts is a big endorsement of their policies when 40 percent are enthusiastic about them and 58 percent are angry about them, then I hope this misread that election as badly as anybody could," Gibbs said.

Obama adviser David Axelrod said voters want Republicans to work with Democrats to fix problems in the health care system, not to obstruct those efforts. He added that it would be politically foolish for lawmakers who supported the overhaul so far to walk away from it now. - FOX News Story

Maybe the White House should take off their rose colored glasses. In case they haven't looked at the polls lately Obama is below 50% approval. That means more oppose than approve. Also, when it comes to Health Care the polls show support at less than 40%.